How HBO’s John Oliver turned online trolls into an FCC-fighting army

HBO’s John Oliver has done the impossible. He has made net neutrality sexy. And the Federal Communications Commission is melting from the heat.

Oliver’s tour de force, 13-minute riff on what the hell net neutrality is, who benefits, and why you should care about proposed changes to it, has done more than gone viral. It is actually getting the attention of a federal agency that revels in being arcane.

But he targeted his plea at one particular type of viewer: Online trolls. (Here’s a two-pronged test to see if you’re a troll: Step One, you’re now skipping to the comments section of this post to rip me for being a fatuous hack. Step Two: You will misspell fatuous.)

“Good evening monsters,” Oliver told the trolls in his audience. “This may be the moment you have spent your whole life waiting for.”

“For once in your life, we need you to channel that anger. That badly-spelled bile that you normally reserve for unforgivable attacks on actresses you seem to think have put on weight. Or politicians that you disagree with. Or photos of your girlfriend getting on with her life.

“Seize your moment, my lovely trolls!” he said.

And they did. On Tuesday, the FCC’s comment system ground to a halt after a trollstorm of 22,257 comments, says Mashable. That’s about one-third of the number of comments posted about the issue since the FCC began accepting comments in February.

We’ve been experiencing technical difficulties with our comment system due to heavy traffic. We’re working to resolve these issues quickly.